Joan drank tea in bed. The herbs flushed through her skin, bitter. He noticed new gray in her eyebrows.
Her robe was open. The herbs made her sweat. Dwight kissed the sheen off her breasts.
“Tell me what you’re thinking.”
“That I should relent. That you should call your phone pal and have him make some calls for Celia.”
Dwight shook his head. “I called from Mississippi. He said no.”
Joan rolled away from him. He pulled off their robes and curled around her. She put his fingers in her mouth for a second and tucked his hand under her head.
“It’s all taking too long.”
“He’ll probably be in L.A. next summer. I’ll be getting his revised schedule soon.”
“Suppose he doesn’t stay at the Beverly Wilshire?”
“He will. We’ll have to lease the perch soon, and start laying in the evidence.”
Joan coughed. “The black kid who leases it will be a witness.”
“We’ll work him through a cutout. If he comes forward, he’ll be considered a nut. People want to crash history. There were four-thousand-odd false witnesses on Jack alone.”
Her pillow was sweated through. Dwight pulled it out and tucked a fresh one under her head.
Joan grabbed a capsule off her nightstand. Dwight passed her his water glass.
She swallowed the capsule. Her hair was wet. Dwight stroked it dry with a bedsheet.
She started dozing. She fell asleep tucked into his hand.
He worked late. Midnight meant Marsh-as-me time. He recalled a cop barter, 1953. Cleveland PD wanted a Fed file. A grand larceny suspect was Red-tinged. The SAC refused a file trade. The PD sent a cop’s ex-wife to lube the Enforcer. She liked random men. He liked random women then. They spent the night at the Shaker Heights Plaza. She brought champagne. He brought the file. They enjoyed each other. She read the file in the morning. Cleveland PD nailed the guy-six-count indictment.
Okay, now-Marsh Bowen’s perspective.
The time was now. Marsh is working the Hollywood night car. He’s alone. He’s trolling. Marsh shits where he eats. He spots a hunky male prosty. He pat-searches him and gets a hard-on. The prosty notices it.
Marsh F.I.-cards the kid and warrant-checks him. He comes back dirty: possession and deuce. Marsh says, “How do you want to handle this?” Fade to the crude back-alley embrace.
He couldn’t sleep. Joan was dead out. Marsh was sleeping over in Ventura. The Black Leadership Council brought him up. Keynote speech: “The Minority Officer’s Role in Team Policing.”
It was 2:14 a.m. He got in with tungsten bolt-snaps and wore infrared shades. He carried his Minox mini. He prowled in rose-tinted dark.
He opened drawers and tapped panels. He got status quo. He scanned the bedroom walls. Marsh had a new Rothko print. He checked the stereo rack. New sides by Chet Baker and the Dresden Stattskapelle. He checked the kitchen trash. Marsh had a new yen for gourmet TV dinners. There’s an airline boarding ticket. Marsh recently traveled to Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Educated guess: he shits out of harms way. Afro fruit retreat.
Dwight walked back to the living room. More status quo. The steel-brushed frames, the neat work desk, the address book by the phone.
He skimmed the pages. Ah, at B: Scotty’s home and work numbers. He skimmed C to M. Ah, there’s a new one.
Sal Mineo. A West Hollywood-prefix listing.
Logicaclass="underline" Sal’s a fag, Sal’s a horndog, Sal’s got a well-traveled chute.
But:
He deployed Sal in a fruit squeeze, four-plus years ago. He saw Sal’s name on a Bureau snitch roster.
Status quo? Probably, but-
One agent dozed in the squadroom. The file keys were hooked to a corkboard. Dwight grabbed them and walked straight back.
The CBI files were five-digit-coded and ran ceiling high. Dwight skimmed the directory. There: “Mineo, Salvatore”/02108. There: third shelf up, two rows over.
Dwight unlocked the panel, stood on his tiptoes and snagged it. It was skimpy. Four pages total. Simple narrative gist.
August, ‘66. Sal’s got a co-star gig. He’s the sidekick in a crime turkey. It’s called Southside Crackdown. It plays low-rung drive-in circuits and disappears. It’s loosely based on the famous 1964 heist.
So far-snore.
Jack Leahy visits the set. Jack braces Sal and the rest of the actors and crew. Suspicious guys loitering? Suspicious queries on the real-life heist?
Sal knew buppkes. Ditto everyone else. Jack charmed Sal and popped his snitch cherry. Sal ratted out queer actors for occasional chump change.
Snore, yawn, status quo-but don’t dismiss it yet.
Dwight stood there. Dwight heard a whole box of pins drop.
The Bureau worked the heist for ten seconds. It was LAPD’s case and Scotty B.’s fixation. Scotty and Marsh, tight now. The heist: Clyde Duber’s soft-line fixation. Marsh worked for Clyde. Scotty grilled Jomo C. about the heist. It made no sense then. It might make sense now. Jomo killed Fred Hiltz, Jomo’s a heister. There’s Joan hovering. She false-snitched Jomo. She ratted Marsh’s fruitness. What do Marsh and Scotty want? Red file tab, red flag. The Marsh-Scotty bond must not impede the Operation.
Dwight put the file back. The pin drop went to pins and needles.
Sicko Sal never slept. He closed fruit bars and debriefed in coffee shops. His milieu was the pre-dawn hen party. The fry cook at the Klondike said try Arthur J.’s.
Dwight bombed over. Sodomy Sal was ensconsed with three trannies. He was tattling. I browned James Dean on Rebel Without a Cause. He was hung like a light switch. I packed him the pork till he squealed.
The trannies tittered. Salacious Sal ragged on Rock Hudson. He was hung like a microbe. I tickled his tonsils till he trilled.
Dwight loomed by the table. The trannies gulped and get-awayed. They left their coffee and pancakes. Dwight helped himself.
Sal fondled his spit curl. “Hello, Mr. Holly.”
“What’s shaking, Sal?”
“Not you again, I hope.”
Dwight poured coffee. “Nothing like that.”
“No entrapment? No victimizing some poor champion of social justice who just happens to dig boys?”
Dwight wiped lipstick off his coffee cup. “Summer ‘66. You were working on Southside Crackdown. Jack Leahy came around with some questions.”
Sal buttered his hash browns. “So? We’re dealing with ancient history. That flick was a loser. I had to sue to get my per diem.”
“You started informing for Jack.”
“Well…”
Dwight snagged a bread stick and scratched his neck. Redd Foxx and that shyster fuck Chick Weiss walked in. A Tiger Kab geek propped them up.
“So, I’m assuming there’s more to the story. ‘Jack Leahy came around.’ You take it from there.”
Sal shrugged. “So, another cop comes around, asking the same kind of questions.”
Dwight said, “Scotty Bennett?”
Sal rolled his eyes. “Oh, yes. Scotty.”
Dwight snapped the bread stick. “Let me drop a name on you. I want to see how you react.”
“It’s a little early for name games, but I’ll play.”
Dwight said, “Marshall Bowen.” Servile Sal seized up and queased up. Oh, yeah-he’s green at the gills.
“Tell me about it.”
Sal fucked with his spit curl. “Why should I?”
“I’ll buy you breakfast if you do. I’ll hang stat rape on you if you don’t. There’s a perv honking boys at Berendo Junior High. You match the description.”
Sal popped a Valium and coffee-chased it. Sal took a get-it-over-with breath.
“Okay, sweetie. I’ve got another fruit shake going. Freddy O. recruited me. A cop’s bankrolling it, but I don’t know his name. Bowen’s the mark, but I cannot get him to loosen his wig and rock ‘n’ roll with me. Some guys are just like that. I’m dying to give up some prime slash, but the boy just will not bite.”